


Technologic

by dev_chieftain



Category: Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:58:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dev_chieftain/pseuds/dev_chieftain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zachary Foxx tries to reconcile with his experience in the Psychocrypt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Technologic

Zachary Foxx wakes at three as usual, paces the floor, mops up sweat from his brow, showers. He kisses a photo of his wife, watches a video feed into the room where his children, on another world, almost as if they were in another time, work in a lab. It is midday; the red is brought out in his son's hair, reminding him of Eliza. His daughter chews the end of an electric pen while she lays out schematics for her latest design. He makes a cup of coffee, drinks it black and scalding.  
  
It is three-thirty.  
  
He dresses in uniform, still taking an extra millisecond here and there to feel the oddness of the bionic arm. It twists and bends in a way that gives his mind minor feedback, whenever he has to shrug into his coat. On missions he will sometimes not change clothes for days, trekking over the harsh land of some foreign world, because the feedback is painful and he does not like the smell of rain it summons. Something about the way the implant in his mind is fastened to his cerebral cortex and the plated wires that link to the false arm stimulates a half-memory, foggy and distant, of an autumn afternoon on Earth. The smell of rain and, just faintly underneath, wet stone: he shrugs into his coat and for an instant, he is twenty four again, holding Eliza's hand, begging her not to go.  
  
It is three-forty-five. Zachary Foxx does not eat breakfast before six am as a rule, but goes to the gym to begin his warm-up. There isn't time in the day, otherwise, and only this early in the day can a man do his exercise without interruption from his fellows. Sometimes Niko meets him here, her silent meditation and pure, deadly focus infecting him with a sense of purpose and calm. This morning, he is alone. He pushes himself to run for an hour at what should be sprinting speed. Four forty-five: he stumbles off of the machine, coughs, chest tight, and collapses to his knees.  
  
This pain is like the pain of the Psychocrypt. His mind feels detached from his body, and he sees into a mind that is endless as space, as boundless and horrific as time. The Queen's agents glitter like the stars because she _is_ the stars, is the universe itself. How anyone can serve any power but the Queen is far beyond his understanding in this moment: this is Zachary Foxx, catching his breath on the floor of the gym, sweat stinging in his eyes, and he is trapped in a glass coffin, half-torn from his body, living a new, other life.  
  
His shoulder aches when he remembers where he is, _when_ , and as he rises he rolls it subconsciously, trying to work the kinks out. Rain, Eliza's hand, and the keen lack when she lets go, and walks away.  
  
He can't remember, anymore, what day it was, or why she left, what for. Just that after, he followed, too slow to dodge the blasts of laserfire, too frightened for her safety to see the children she had rushed to save. They called Zachary and Eliza Foxx heroes that day.  
  
It is five.  
  
Whatever it is that heroes are supposed to be made of, he couldn't really say. All Zachary has done is lose his wife, and an arm.


End file.
